Poems like Prayers for “The Warriors”

Businesswoman turned poet, Frances Richey read from her second poetry compilation, “The Warrior” at the Macaulay center last week. Through boxy glasses Richey recited her poems, which concern her son’s deployment to Iraq. Tremendously poignant and obviously very personal, Richey’s poems deal with the bond between mother and son, the “letting go” of a loved one, and the realization that we all lead independent lives. Sound familiar? We all have probably experienced such introspection while reminiscing over dusty old photographs usually tucked away deep in the upstairs closet. In truth, Richey’s poems lack the innovative nuances that make contemporary poetry interesting and compelling.
Having altered careers relatively late in life, Richey was lucky to receive workshop training for her poetry. The imagery and figurative language in her poems show the toil behind them. Each sentence seems to have the perfect amount of adjectives, and the setting always seems to be a universal American pastoral. She tells us how she feels about the war and about her son. There is little left up to the imagination. One cannot help but speculate if the poems would be more captivating if Richey had stepped out of the boundaries of formulaic poetics.
In the same way, the lack of variation of subject might be of concern to those readers who are not mothers with sons in the Iraq war. Although it is apparent that Richey’s poems are deeply imbued with emotion, it is difficult for readers whose paths have not coincidentally converged on ones similar to hers to relate to the poems and think anything other than, “this is well-sculpted verse.” However, Richey definitely has a target audience. “My poems are accessible,” she says, “some people like it, some people don’t.” She encourages readers who find themselves lost during these warring times to read her poems and understand the connectedness of it all – for almost every soldier in the war there is a mother, wife, or daughter waiting back home. In the words of Frances Richey, “everybody has their own music,” and if yours is Mozart then you will surely enjoy “The Warriors.”